Some Thai shots

[Cedric]

Sorry not much good with a camera, but here are some I managed to take while on the run from breeder to breeder. It was also very hot and humid around 96% with a good 80-90% humidity. I love the first shot, the way the garden is mirrored on the shutter painting, classic Thai. Most are in my hotel of the lotus and a few at street markets selling lilies.

[Ky Kim]

That  lilie (?) is amazing.  So different from what we have here.  All your photos are really great. 

Kim

[marla]

Your pictures are wonderful and so are the lilies/lotus

[Jonna]

Beautiful Cedric.  What is that first and second flower?  A lily?  I thought it was a lotus at first because of the size of the leaves but it doesn't have the lotus center.  Did the flower just happen to grow up in the center of the pads like that or was it 'helped'?  Just spectacular.  Post more pics!

[Cedric]

The first is a flower arrangement using a double white lotus stuck through the centre of a single lotus pad in a giant jar. Sometimes they fold the outer petals back as they unfold fully and soften. Being a million petal type this can go on for many weeks. The second shot shows the first unfurled petals and sepals not yet folded back in another arrangement. The hotel grounds were full of lotus and lilies unfortunately I just didn't get all the shots. But they pick them for flower arrangements every morning.

On the lotus front a very dark red variant has been discovered in the North of the country it had just arrived straight from the provinces where it was growing wild when i was there. Dr Slearmlarp has it now. Hopefully it will grow well and multiply. The colour is deep and quite magnificent, quite unlike any lotus I have ever seen. When the sun shines through the petals it looks like a red moon.

[Sunbeam56]

What a great window and view of the garden. 

[jclements]

Amazing! So which plants did you add to your collection?

[MikeW]

Humidity - ugh! But it does amazing things for plants. I was in Singapore a few years back, and while my entourage has haggling over prices for digital cameras, I was always down some sidestreet just gawking at the lotus' for sale, just growing, all casual like, in a big tin on the pavement. The blood, sweat and tears I have invested in trying to grow them here, well, let's move on to another story.

You are right about that first photo, amazing

Cheers,

Mike

[miguynmkoi]

The only good thing about humidity is it's great for tropicals and my complexion!   

Love flower arrangements in Asia and the ones you show here are beautiful!!!  Love the first shot too of the drop dead portico.  I like the bowls of what looks like pennywort...will try to copy that look too with the ones I got from Blind'Too.

Gotta love the pottery and statuary!!

[tranquility]

Gorgeous pics...that is really kewl the way the bend the petals back....
Lawanna

[Julles]

Thanks, Cedric.  I love travel photos.

Is there any rig-a-ma-role re transporting living plants across national borders?

[Cedric]

Yes and no Julles. Depends on where you are going or coming from. They don't like any soil. And you need a phyto sanitary document and an import  license. Both very easily and cheaply obtainable, no red tape at all. In fact they issue the phyto at the airport for you in Bangkok. The import license is valid for six months and can be done with a phone call and a fax, or even e-mail before you leave. Costs nothing, and all you do is list as many plants as you can imagine you might possibly buy and more, and then off you go. The license covers them all, you don't pay for individual items.

Try taking even an Apple into Australia however and you will get the shock of your life, they will treat you like an international gang of arms smugglers.

[miguynmkoi]

Try taking even an Apple into Australia however and you will get the shock of your life, they will treat you like an international gang of arms smugglers.

I am on a list, I'm sure, for importing an orange peel, from my dinner on an airplane arriving in LAX.  I was lucky ( ) to get chosen to have all my luggage xray'd.  The orange peel must have fallen into my carry-on bag    The airport home defense security took my passport and typed some info into the computer.  I can't wait for my next trip abroad for when I return home they will most likely strip search me  for a leave on the bottom of my shoe.

[Cedric]

Yea it's all quite ridiculous. While I can understand their fear, I cannot stand the way they can't think for themselves. I innocently took in a bottle of sterilised in-vitro orchid seedlings, and I mean they were growing in agar in a sealed bottled where all germs had been removed. They were horrified that I could even consider it safe. Luckily all they did was confiscate it.

But that is so no-where, if the medium had been at all tainted with anything even a single bacteria it would have been all black and dead. These were healthy seedling ready to remove and acclimatise, couldn't have been safer. In fact my clothes were probably more of a risk, even my hands.